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Category: vBulletin.org Forum
[Release vB2.0b2] vBShell

Preliminary release of vBShell. Using wlukes enhanced BFC Weblog and PHPNuke, PHPWebsite bits and pieces I put together this thing you may or may not find useful, it's basically an alternative to my Nuke2vB hack, I think this will be more useful to myself and have decided to release it to see if anyone else can use it.

You can see it in action and get it here http://www.911pc.com Note the forum is for demo only, not for posting. Please post all bites, digs, what ever here...

I've been trying to find a way to integrate my news into vB for comments. The only thing is I noticed you use the announcements for news. This limits you to only people with vBCP access to add news. That won't work for a lot of people I imagine. I have about 10 newsies that post news on our site, but I don't want them to have full control of the forum.

Great idea though!
I was going to try and design something like this from scratch.

Actually, you'll find the second news entry is based on this thread: http://www.911pc.com/vbshell/showthread.php?threadid=7

Hmm. yes you're right. I didn't notice that, excuse my assumption.

What kind of templateing system does it use?

Awsome work.

This will be something I will watch the developement of and hopefully down the line install once things get semi complete with it and vB2.

Do you have a mailing list setup?

Well seems I screwed it up!! the download install.txt had some errors in the mod index.php portion and won't work. I did a fix and put it on line but I have no way of testing it quickly. So if anyone is trying it please down load the new one and try again.
I also forgot the style.css file, sorry for being so forgetful.

Ok. This is very sweet!!! /me is going to direct the Tribalwar Admin to this post. :)

I also like an more in-depth explaination on how this "hack" or feature works. Thanks in advance if you comply. :rolleyes:

I don't know how in depth I can get, it's basically a hack that I put together based on the idea of a weblog such as PHPNuke/PHPWebsite but using the vBulletin hack BFC Weblog that I believe was made originally by Paul Young and enhanced by wluke. Anyway I just put together various bits of these and some of my own ideas into creating "vBshell". The admin section allows you to enter html code into the side boxs with your browser, and you can add or delete the blocks in the same way. Such as the affiliate ads I put up on the vBShell demo, all I did was cut and paste into the block admin. It utilizes separate header scripts that will allow you to integrate the look and feel of your site into about any php script, and the nice part is that this allows you to call vB's user routines so you only have one user account site wide.
If you look at the admin and block scripts they will serve as a basic template as to how you can integrate any script into the site. VB utilizes the vBShell header thru the phpinclude template and in return provides the various templates for the Weblog/home page. I tried to keep it very basic for as easy as possible install, but with your imagination and a little work you can really customize it very easily.
It's rough around the edges right now, I'm not really a programmer and consider this a learning expierience. I hope that's enough in-depth rambling...

BTW, several people including Dark_Wizard are already putting together integrated addons for vBShell, such as a links script, a photo album, download script and others are planned. The addons will be modular and design controlled by the style.css script which incidently was concieved by the students that are writing PHPWebsite another PHPNuke knockoff.

Originally posted by leadZERO
Hmm. yes you're right. I didn't notice that, excuse my assumption.

What kind of templateing system does it use?

Except for the external header and footer required for addons and site integration it uses vB2.0 templates.

And yes as Ed pointed out the Top Headline is the only block utilizing VB's announcement system. This is meant to be a static Headline controlled by the admistrator. The following News blocks are controlled by what ever forum you designate via the BFC Weblog hack. This can be set for what ever moderation you desire, the same as any other forum.

/me likes

Installed a while ago, looks damn good. :)

Just a few questions:
* could you describe each template and what it does?
* can we expect smooth upgrade to vB 2.0 Beta 2
* where can I set what forum will be for news?

Thanks in advance.

Pat yourself on the back - pretty good work.

As soon as I change bgcolor in Styles -> Body Tag (Admin Control Panel) vbShell stops showing all blocks.

Are you losing the phpinclude template, that was happening to me at first, if so the fix is here http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8783&highlight=phpinclude Let me know...

Yep, I realized I've been losing it before I posted here. :) I'm going to test it and let you know.

Please, take a look at the attachement and tell me what 1.1.1970 means. Just curious. :)

No probs with styles now. Fixed. Thanks.

Originally posted by PeF
Yep, I realized I've been losing it before I posted here. :) I'm going to test it and let you know.

Please, take a look at the attachement and tell me what 1.1.1970 means. Just curious. :)

You haven't posted an announcement and assigned it to the news forum yet. That will be the post date as soon as you do.

You know whats really cool about this.... Communicating and working with someone from : Prague, Czech or any other place, I've worked in IS for years, but never get over the fact!!!! it's a Small World.

Originally posted by PeF
Installed a while ago, looks damn good. :)

Just a few questions:
* could you describe each template and what it does?
* can we expect smooth upgrade to vB 2.0 Beta 2
* where can I set what forum will be for news?

Thanks in advance.

Pat yourself on the back - pretty good work.

Since your only changing templates, I don't see anything that would be affected with future versions.

To set the news forum look for the following in your modified index.php

// News ForumID This is set to the Forumid of your news forum
$newsforum = 2;


and set it to the forumid your using for news...

I'll try to explain the templates better in a future release with comments in each...

It's cool globally. That possibility to communicate with someone on the other side of Earth, those small differences among nations. World is getting smaller and smaller.

I've been playing with templates for an hour. I'll try to move hardcoded settings (newsforum id, how many news you'd like to display, a creation of new templates for the administration, etc.) Hope you don't mind I'm playing with the code.

To add the options into the vBulletin Control Panel do the following.

Take this out:

// News ForumID This is set to the Forumid of your news forum
$newsforum = 2;
// News Limit -- How many stories should be displayed?
$newslimit = 3;


And insert the following rows into your SettingsGroupTable.

INSERT INTO settinggroup VALUES ( NULL, 'vBPortal', '34');


Find SettingGroup ID for above.

And these into the Settings table:

INSERT INTO setting (settingid, settinggroupid, title, varname, value, description, optioncode, displayorder)
VALUES (NULL, '34', 'News Forum', 'newsforum', '2', 'Enter the forum you wish to use for announcements and news for your Community Portal', '', '1')
INSERT INTO setting (settingid, settinggroupid, title, varname, value, description, optioncode, displayorder)
VALUES (NULL, '34', 'News Limit', 'newslimit', '3', 'How many news articles do you wish to display on the Community Portal Page.', '', '2')


Make sure to change the '34' for settinggroupid to the appropriate value in the insert statements above so they show up correctly. You could have more or less setting groups depending on how many hacks you have installed.

I just wanted to say.. This is great and saves me about a weeks work. Thanks.

wluke
Thanks for the tip, I'm going to try it today! and about vBShell it's of course not as good as you or the other hackers here could do, I'm just learning but it's a start, any ideas are appreciated very much...

BTW... Dark_Wizard has teamed with me on the project and he is just about done with the VB admin cp integration for the side blocks and addons administration...

Well I got it installed today and while I haven't gone through the actual code, the implementation of it is very good (templates, integration, etc). I have to play with the templates and setup my left and right blocks before I move it to production but so far so good.

I most likely will be making a few changes over the next few weeks and turning it into a user-driven page. I'll share what developments I make in it.

Sounds great...

http://www.911pc.com/vbshell/index.php?action=forums

Wajone- i think this is your side, it seems to be corrupted, nothing is displayed in Netscape!!!!

The full code is delivered, but Netscape don't show me your Content... only IE :(

greetings

I know, Netscape doesn't like my styles.css I think, I'm working on a fix.

but it's most an error in table structure that makes this behavior of netscape not in the css file!
Check just the tables from that page's without any content with borders ;). Sometimes just an open " is enough for this browser.. :o

Why do you open first a table without any table rows or table data, just a table about 99% with a cellspacing=8???
< table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="8" width="99%" align="center" >

After adding < tr > & < TD >local, my netscape shows the page ;)

Thanks, I deleted it. IE is very forgiving and I don't have Netscape any more, let me know how it looks if you would.

Dang! I downloader Netscape 6 and checked it out, I hate Netscape!!!

<TABLE CELLPADDING=0 CELLSPACING=0 WIDTH="100%" background="./shellimages/topheader_slice.jpg" VALIGN="bottom">
<IMG SRC="./shellimages/bar2.gif" WIDTH="100%" HEIGHT="5" BORDER=0>

<TR>
<TD>
<IMG SRC="./shellimages/topheader2.jpg" WIDTH="563" HEIGHT="98" BORDER=0>
</TD>
<TD>

</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>
<IMG SRC="./shellimages/bar2.gif" WIDTH="100%" HEIGHT="5" BORDER=0>
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
What do you want to do with that bar2.gif before the table data? After all, deleting the first table was not the main error of the netscape view, perhabs you should add that table again and also the tr and td;)

Netscape is the pickiest browser. Every time I think I've come up with a cool effect that works on IE Netscape screws it up and I have to start all over. What I've been told is "Netscape follows the rules to the T where IE is more forgiving." Whatever it is I've grown to hate Netscape. Good thing is only <5% of our viewers use Netscape.

But think of this:

What was the first thing to be, the egg or the chicken? It's the same thing with webdesign. You Design a Page, and the visitors choose to stay or not. If there were only 5% of Netscape Users, think of your design settings and recheck it, you will loose thousands of profesional Netscpae-Users....

Yes, lot's of features from the Internet Explorer arn't availible in Netscape, but they are not W3C-standard's also. It is possible, to use IE and Netscape Features in the same html file, the browser only shows you the thing, he can, that's realy exciting Webdesing.
The Web is full of different System's, Browser's and Users, the work of a good webdesigner is to make webpages usefull for "the most" people availible.

Well I never ever professed to be "good webdesigner" but I'm trying to fix it... It looks like it's working in Netscape 6, I'm not about to check every version of everything out there.

Originally posted by wajones
Well I never ever professed to be "good webdesigner" but I'm trying to fix it... It looks like it's working in Netscape 6, I'm not about to check every version of everything out there.

Here is my feeling on this..

If you put your HTML code into templates, there is no reason for other admins to complain if it doesn't handle a particular browser. If they want support for that browser then they can edit the templates. The important thing in an addon or hack is to make sure the code works well and can be utilized in a wide range of vBulletin installations.

wluke, I agree totally.

I know I released my “vbportal” before it was anything close to being perfect, in fact I did it intentionally hoping for a lot of input in order to make it as good and as customizable a hack for vBulletin as I could. Really just wanting to share something with the vB community and maybe attract a little traffic to my website as well. :D

Well, NS6.x renders html a LOT better than NS4.x does.

For those scared of the bloat in NS6, just go to www.mozilla.org and download the latest build. Its NS6.x w/out the AOL baggage.

It is truly hard to make stuff work on IE/NS4/NS6, though :(

If you write a good html Style (look at W3C), then every browser will display a result, that will look the same on quite different Browsers and Systems.
Perhab's just feel free to design your Website's with ms Word without thinking and we got much wore www rubbish. :D

wluke>>> I agree!. I used to be a Netscape diehard along time ago and feel the same way...it is very difficult to make it work with all versions and more so with Netscape. I have less that 1% of Netscape users coming to my sites and I refuse to make it work for all versions, I will at the most make it work for the latest version ONLY! nothing more nothing less....

style-guide!

Guide me!!! My Home page in any browser at 800x600 initially loads wider than the screen, but if you click the refresh button it resizes to fit???? splain /me

Originally posted by wajones
style-guide!

Guide me!!! My Home page in any browser at 800x600 initially loads wider than the screen, but if you click the refresh button it resizes to fit???? splain /me

Give your images height and width tags and see if this fixes the problem.

Thanks, I'll check that out.

I'm too late (working about from 10AM to 10PM CET), but the answer by wluke hit's the nail by it's head I think ;).

Sometimes, especially Netscape, refreshes a site after loading is complete, never mind about that, better than a blue screen :D

style-guide!>> Check my site and see if it works...
http://www.islandncs.com/ad/index.php

I got a screwed off login page with Netscape and a black page for registratin with it, only IE shows everythink, as you want it!

The forums Mainview is also black :( :(

Ok...let me take a hard look at it....I really haven't done anything for Netscape users so maybe it's time...I'll post back when I think I have found something...you may want to try the guestbbok I'm working on here:
http://www.islandncs.com/ad/guestbook.php and see if that works...

Great hack I'm looking forward to test it, I was wondering though if it's possible to make the user login in order to add a link, that way we could track malicious users, and reduce fake or inappropriate links to a minimum!
just an idea, and with some of the talents here I would think it's easy to implement!

I was wondering though if it's possible to make the user login in order to add a link


A link has to be validated by the admin first before it is added to the database.

Originally posted by Dark_Wizard


A link has to be validated by the admin first before it is added to the database.
I see that's ok, but not too practical in my opinion, I would rather let my users add directly (like in a post) and by having them logged I would be able to know who I couldn't trust ;)

Again great jobs guys!

I see that's ok, but not too practical in my opinion, I would rather let my users add directly (like in a post) and by having them logged I would be able to know who I couldn't trust


I will look into it in the next release....I am trying to finish numerous addons/hacks for the next release of wajones' vbshell. The addons/hacks are:

Links Page (80% complete)
GuestBook (95% complete)
Integration of vbshell control panel with vb's control panel (95% complete), see pic below...
Many more to follow


Here is a sneek peek of the control panel integration with plugin addon support....

What does a shell do?

Looks great man, I'm trying to implement some sort of link index with a star rating system (kinda like the one at hotscripts.com) but in order to add a link the user must be logged in

I have a dedicated server, and my forums are running off a virtual domain.

So my forums are located at maindomain.com/virtualdomain OR virtualdomain.com.

Is it possible to get vBShell to work on my main domain?

The next version is completely template driven and will be an integrated part of vB so the scripts would have to be on the domain your running it from I would think because of the cookie issue.

Originally posted by wajones
I would think because of the cookie issue.

There is an option in the control panel to have the cookie set to your domain instead of the subdomain, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Something seems broken on

http://www.911pc.com/vbshell/

:)

Could you be more specific... I'm not getting any errors, although you may from time to time. I'm developing the vbPortal shell on line :D

The page cannot be displayed is all I get.

The side bars don't seem to align correctly. They're pushed down. Looks like a couple of tables may be broken.

Not sure what it looked like earlier, first time i've seen it :)

Shri

the problem was the main page didn't work if you just went to http://www.911pc.com/vbshell/ but if you go to http://www.911pc.com/vbshell/index.php?action=vbshell it works.

I guess I'll have to start working off line! I'm getting too many visitors... The only trouble with working with styles is that you have to remember template changes in all of them :D or is there a way around that?

Damn! I have a database corruption , the error say's it's in the searchindex table, it looks ok but really large??? Doe's anyone know anything about this?

I go to http://www.911pc.com/vbshell/ and it gives me a 404 Error.

I go to http://www.911pc.com and the site comes up just fine, but when I go to the downloads and try to download Nuke2vB or vbPortal for vBulletin 2.0 I get a 404 Error.

The downloads are at
http://www.911pc.com/vbportal/addons/download.php?op=mydown&did=3 and
http://www.911pc.com/vbportal/addons/download.php?op=mydown&did=2

I am using IE 5.0. What is going on?

He had a problem with his database...go to http://www.911pc.com/vbportal/index.php

New Url for vbPortal a.k.a. vBShell is http://www.911pc.com or is http://www.911pc.com/vbportal Sorry for all the inconvience... I hope i have things cleared up, if not let me know!

Note: The vBShell name has been dropped because of a naming conflict with another script.

The vbPortal 1.1 hack is being tested. I hope to have this complete within a few weeks. Please visit and give it a test, see if it breaks before it's released. Everything you see on the home page uses VB templates. The addons like the downloads section and the opendir utilize VB's style sheet for site uniformity but not templates.

Nice hack!

I realize that this is kind of a late response, and I hate to bring back old subjects, but is there a working download of vBportal available for download? I can't seem to download it off that pc911.com website, it seems as though it downloads all the way through, but i cannot open the zipped file..

Anyone help?










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